Michael John Neill's genealogy website. Things that cross my path, general research suggestions, and whatever else ...with a little bit of attitude. I don't post "news" just to post it, never post a press release (edited or otherwise), don't feign excitement, and pretty much say what I think.

02 April 2008

Using Genealogy for Passwords

Most of have too many passwords. Sometimes we even are forced to change passwords periodically and unable to "reuse" passwords for a specific amount of time. Colleagues at work have suggested using a word and a number after the word, incrementing the number by one each time. Great idea. Not.

If I can't remember whether I used bubbagum12 or bubbagum13 and I enter in the wrong one too many times, I get kicked out.

I designed a different system. I use initials (or names) of relatives and their year of birth. This works better for me as I "know" from memory the name of each ancestor through my great-grandparents with their year of birth. Then my challenge question is simply "so and so" and I know what it means.

For those who say that others might be able to figure it out based upon the challenge question, that is taken care of too. I have "nicknames" for each grandparent that no would (other than my parents) would know. My challenge question is not "Grandma Neill," but rather "Grandma Goose" (not her real nickname), or "Grandma Goose's mother." Then I know to whom I was referring and I can enter the appropriate password.

I just got sick and tired of making up arbitrary passwords I could never remember.

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Seminars

I present day-long seminars on a wide variety of genealogical topics across the United States. Email me at mjnrootdig@gmail.com with date/location of your event and I'll be in touch with lecture topics and other details.